My Chronicle
by inquisitivespirit
Summary: I've always been afraid of the reaping. But not like this. This year it's different. At least last year if I was chosen I stood a chance. This year, being chosen as a tribute is essentially a death sentence. This is my Chronicle. I'm writing it so maybe in the future someone will read it and care. Maybe someday in a better world…


Another year, another reaping. They always terrified me and I never thought that they would stop terrifying me, but I suppose I hoped that I would get used to it or something. And I guess I never thought that the fear would get this much worse.

Once again it's the day of the reaping, and it's starting to seem as if the odds are just getting worse and worse. I mean, before this year I at least stood a chance, but now, if it's my name that's chosen out of that glass bowl, it's as good as a death sentence.

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Clare, I'm 17, and I live in District 8. I grew up surrounded by threads, needles, and bits of coarse material. District 8 specialises in textiles and my parents were determined that I learn the trade as quickly as possible, so as to have the greatest possible advantage in our harsh world. I never quite understood how it was that we could work with the finest fabrics in Panem while only being able to afford to wear the worst.

Now, I dress in the nicest clothes I own, a dress that hopefully I will get to wear again next year. Soon I am in line with all the other girls of District 8, all of us hoping that we are not chosen this year. Looking at the numbers alone, the odds are as close to my favour as they can possibly be. My parents refused to let me apply for tessera so my name is entered in the minimum of six times. I am as close to safe as someone of my age can be.

All us 12 to 18 year olds are filed into the town square under the stern gaze of the Peacekeepers. Our escort, a ridiculous woman brought straight from the Capitol, climbs up the steps of the stage in front of us, precariously balancing in her five inch high heeled shoes. She clomps along the stage towards the glass bowls containing the precious slips of paper with our names on them, every tap of her heels a countdown to some poor girl's fate.

She reaches the glass bowls and starts the usual propaganda. It's the same thing each time, about how lucky we are that the Capitol saved us from extinction and blah, blah, blah, so I tune most of it out. Soon the moment we've all been dreading arrives. "Ladies first," says the Capitol lady in her ridiculously excited voice, just like every year. She reaches into the glass bowl, her hand fumbling around trying to get a hold of a single slip of paper.

'Clare Shannon!'

This cannot be happening. Maybe if I stay really still no one will know it's me and they'll have to pick someone else. No luck with that, a few people that know me looked my way which started a domino effect, and now the Peacekeepers are coming my way. Damn.

So now there's a Peacekeeper either side of me marching me up to the stage as the girl tribute for the Hunger Games, a 'game' where people fight to the death with only one survivor. I'm trying my best not to show just how terrified I really am when really this is my worst nightmare come to life. I can barely manage the walk up to steps because my legs are shaking so much and I really hope it isn't showing because this is televised and will be on repeat all over Panem for the next few days. The lady with the heels is cheerfully congratulating me on being chosen and I try to concentrate on what is happening around me but it is all I can do to stop the all-encompassing terror from dissolving me into a million pieces.

Before I know it the boy tribute's name is drawn, and we're preforming the customary handshake as we're pronounced District 8's tributes. It's then that I hear it, a low wail so close to what I'm feeling that for a moment I thought I'd lost my illusion of calm. But it's not coming from my lips, but someone else's. It's not me that's losing it but someone else. I look around and the scene that greets me as I'm ushered out by the Peacekeepers to the Justice Building is my mother trying to run towards me screaming 'My baby!' and having to be held back by my grief-stricken father lest the Peacekeepers see her as a threat, tears streaming down her face as her only child is taken away to face the arena.


End file.
